The work of Dr. Mansel may be described as an attempt to prove the truth of Christianity on the principles of the most sceptical philosophy. It may be briefly stated thus: Reason is incapable of forming any idea of God as He is, whether as the Infinite, the Absolute, or the first Cause. All the conceptions which we can frame on the subject are mutually self‐ destructive. On similar principles our conceptions of His moral attributes are wholly inadequate to inform us of His real perfections. It by no means follows that our human conception of benevolence or justice is a measure of the divine benevolence, or of divine justice; and so of His other attributes. It is affirmed that because they are the attributes of an infinite Being, they lie beyond the possibility of being realized in human thought. Consequently, holiness in God may admit of very different manifestations from holiness in man. Upon these principles, which affirm the inadequacy of the human intellect, even to conceive of anything as it exists in God, it follows that our only possible conceptions of God are relative; or, to use the word chosen by the author in relation to Christianity, regulative; _i.e._ fitted to regulate our conduct, but not to illuminate our understanding. Upon the assumption that reason, when it attempts to analyse our ideas of the Infinite, the Absolute, or the first Cause, lands us in hopeless contradictions, Dr. Mansel arrives at the conclusion that it is incapable of forming any conception of God as he actually exists. It follows as a necessary consequence from this, that even by revelation we are only capable of attaining relative ideas of Him, and that these relative ideas do not represent His real nature, but are only regulative of conduct, _i.e._ we are to act upon them as if they were true. _E.g._ God is revealed as holy. Our only conception of holiness is our human conception of it. But we cannot know that this is an adequate measure of the divine holiness. God is declared to be benevolent. We have no conception of benevolence but that which is derived from the human mind. So likewise with respect to justice. But benevolence and justice as they exist in God may differ from these qualities as they exist in man. The same thing follows as a necessary conclusion from Dr. Mansel’s premises with respect to all the other attributes of God. Nothing will better illustrate the position to which this argument reduces us than to apply it to the truthfulness or veracity of God. All that we know about truthfulness is as it exists in finite beings, that is, in men. But God is an infinite being. It follows therefore that truthfulness in man is no adequate representation of truthfulness as it exists in God, that is to say, that the divine veracity may differ from our human conception of it. This is certainly a very startling position.